How four writers announced their success and took the Indian bestseller mainstream

How four writers announced their success and took the Indian bestseller mainstream

There are four writers besides Chetan Bhagat who mark key points in the timeline of the English bestseller in India.

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india today digital

August 28, 2014

ISSUE DATE: September 8, 2014

UPDATED: August 29, 2014 09:35 IST

There are four writers besides Chetan Bhagat who mark key points in the timeline of the English bestseller in India. Amish Tripathi, who writes as Amish, is an IIM alumnusbanker-turned-writer like Bhagat. He also rings in sales in the millions, with his Shiva trilogy of mythological thrillers making him representative of two more writers in the bestselling clique: Ashwin Sanghi and Anand Neelakantan.

Amish ran through the rejection circuit too, and eventually self-published his first book, The Immortals of Meluha. It was a "blessing in disguise", says Amish, as it forced him towards innovative, "out-of-the-box marketing ideas". For instance, he offered copies of the first chapter free of cost: "My wife got the idea from the FMCG industry. What is a sachet about but a way of inducing trial?" The book sold 40,000 copies, at which point Westland bought the rights, and recently bid $1 million for his next trilogy. A key breakaway mark for him was to price the book higher, at Rs 299. Subsequent books in the trilogy have been marketed with professionally produced videos and music, and Amish exhorts debut writers, "Market your book, market it well." He adds that the key to being discovered by readers has been social media, which has democratised the publishing space, breaking the stranglehold of the in-class.

By virtue of his sales, Ravinder Singh, still just 32, forced an established publishing house such as Penguin to change its business model. For his first book, I Too Had a Love Story, he went with Srishti after being rejected by other publishers. The book, the writing of which was a way of dealing with the death of his fianc, drew its title from Erich Segal's Love Story and became one of the highest-selling novels ever. Penguin sought his subsequent book, which too sold in the hundreds of thousands, and he leads a group of writers of romance, including Durjoy Dutta, who publish under Penguin's Metro Reads label.

Singh's personal story is fascinating too: he followed up his bestselling debut, written while he was at Infosys, with an MBA from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. He got a dream job with Microsoft, but subsequently left to write full-time. He has a hysterical fan following, and personally answers readers' requests for advice on their life problems. Preeti Shenoy, a devoted blogger, too started out at Srishti, and her 2010 debut novel, Life is What You Make It, still sells steadily, having already moved more than 250,000 copies.

She is now with Westland, and each of her subsequent books, stories with life lessons, has sold more than 50,000 copies. Shenoy, 42, is unique for being the only woman in the highest-selling league. A book editor explains that by and large Indian men do not pick up romantic fiction by women writers.

Anuja Chauhan, 44, is a bestseller by traditional standards, but has yet to hit a stratospheric sales graph. Her three books so far-The Zoya Factor, Battle for Bittora and Those Pricey Thakur Girls-are witty, sometimes wickedly so, racily told, acutely observed and easily could stand in for a social history of Delhi. Karthika V.K., her editor at HarperCollins, would put her in a category apart, and Ananth Padmanabhan, senior vice president (sales) at Penguin Random House, would agree. Chauhan, an advertising whizkid who came up with most of Pepsi's takenotice campaigns, won't be detained by such niceties. She wants to reach more readers and says if you don't sell one lakh copies, you have no business calling yourself a bestseller.